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15 Email Marketing Tips For Small Businesses

This article was published on: 06/28/15 10:18 AM by Kimberly Aris

Think of email marketing as a cost-effective way of reaching customers, wherever they are. Getting your customers’ email addresses gives you a lot of opportunities that you should use wisely. Here are the 15 email marketing tips that guarantee a successful business newsletter.

Simplify subscribing

Create an easy-to-fill subscribing form that includes information like names and birthdays. You can use that information for gifts or discounts. The best place for a newsletter sign-up is on your website’s home page, on your social media pages (Facebook), blogs, and other sites that your customers already visit.

Inform your potential subscribers

Use the sign-up form to let your potential subscribers know what your emails are going to be about. Give details about what kind of information they’re going to receive (tips, deals, updates, upcoming events), and when should they expect your emails.

Give subscribers a welcome message

Send your new subscribers a “thank you” email, that includes an offer destined for new comers, or any kind of additional benefit. Make sure you mention the reason why they’re on your mailing list, and thank them for subscribing.

Use your brand design when creating the newsletter

Your newsletter has to match the approaches and features that your brand has. Use templates that include your logo and your business’s colors. This will make your subscribers easily associate your emails with your business from the very beginning.

Make the emails easy-to-read

The subscribers want to get information from you, but you have to make it easy for them to scan through the content. Time is of the essence and reading long one-block content is not on their list of priorities. Use images, short paragraphs and an interesting teaser in the first line of your newsletter. If you must include a longer article, add a “Continue Reading” link, so the subscribers have easy access to the rest of the content.

Send relevant content

Make sure that your subscribers receive information that is relevant to them. Use newsletter features like creating groups, in order to personalize the content. If you plan to send different content to each group, ask your subscribers which group they want to be a part of. If you offer deals, then you should use geographical segmentation. This way you can send relevant deals or special offers when they’re available in a certain area. Assuring your subscribers that each email that they receive from you comes with benefits is a good way of keeping them engaged.

Create a schedule

A newsletter campaign is something that requires time and consistency. Make sure you have a publishing schedule that you can follow. Subscribers that don’t get reached at regular intervals are going to forget they were ever interested in your updates.

Revise

When scheduling your publishing dates, make sure you take into consideration all the editing and revising that goes into great content. There’s nothing you can do after the email has been sent, so revisions are a definite must. Your carefully crafted message can be put into bad light by small grammar mistakes, so don’t overlook this aspect.

Test every possibility

There are many devices that your subscribers use in order to read emails, so you should cover all the bases in term of content being displayed in a pleasant way, regardless of the screen size. You can use test services or you can send the emails to people in the office. These tests will expose any design mistakes. Testing can help you fix those mistakes before your emails reach your subscribers. The best way of making sure any device can display your message (that includes images) properly is adding a text-only feature.

Make it mobile-friendly

Use a responsive template in order to reach mobile users. The easiest and fastest way for subscribers to check their emails is on mobile devices. Create a campaign that uses this fact to its advantage.

Avoid spamming

Not knowing what can get you in trouble for spamming is not an excuse, so inform yourself from the CAN-SPAM act. As a summary, you can send bulk email only to subscribers that purposely singed-up to be on your list. Cover your bases by including an unsubscribing link and a reminder of how the subscriber got on your mailing list.

Keep it shareable

Make sure your emails have content that your subscribers will want to share. Include a link to the web page of your campaign, and add social media links (like Twitter and Facebook) to your newsletter, in order to give your subscribers easy ways of sharing the content on social networks. Reaching other people through your current audience and gaining new subscribers should always be a goal.

Work on your stats

Email newsletter services will most likely give you reports that include valuable information. Make it a goal to interpret these reports, in order to improve your future campaign. The stats will show you different patterns that you can link to any changes in the newsletters. These stats can help you on a trial & error process at first.

Keep it friendly

Using a conversational and friendly tone in your emails is a good strategy. Collect first names in your subscription form, and address your subscribers using their first name. This makes your content easier to relate to. Your subscribers are most likely not wearing a business suit every time they get your emails, so keep it informal.

Decide if you need a newsletter campaign

This should be one of your first thoughts, but jumping on this trend without considering what’s involved is something business owners can sometimes overlook. Email marketing is a way of getting your content to the customer, and this has to be a steady process. Think of how much effort you have to put into a successful campaign, and what are your advantages of putting in that amount of effort. Ask yourself if this is a good way of reaching your customers. If it is, then continue and send your subscribers meaningful newsletters that reflect your business’s message.

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